All posts tagged ‘Eruption’

Eruption, by Stratus Games, is a tile laying and resource management game. As the title suggests, the game focuses on a volcano eruption which jeopardizes the villages of up to six players.

What’s in the box? A game board, lava flow tiles, eruption tiles, resources (straw, wood, and stone), game play cards, dice and instructions.

The Play: The player lays out a tile connecting lava flow paths on the game board aiming for their opponent. The player can then attempt to cut off a lava flow or protect their village with walls of straw, wood, or stone. If the player would like to play one of the three cards in their hand to gain a resource or effect game play, this can also be done. As the game progresses, for each lava flow that touches your village, your “temperature” goes up. When a player reaches the highest temperature, they lose and the player with the lowest village temperature wins.

The Pieces: The player tokens, resources, and all of the tiles and cards are a really good quality. The board is really pretty and bright and lures in players with the idea of excitement and heat. The instructions unfortunately are what is needed to make the game fun instead of frustrating. It took several thorough read-throughs to mostly understand the rules. We expected to be able to go through the intricate details of a turn in order but found the rule book jumped around and was scatterbrained in its organization.

You can see the player cards offer two options: turn in for an extra resource or perform a game action.

Starting the game... photos by Cathe Post unless otherwise noted.

A village protected by straw (yellow) and stone (grey).

Someone placed an Eruption tile! lava can spew from any direction! This can happen up to three times a game.

The completed lava flow at the end of a two person game.

Mother Approved? The game is really pretty. It can be used as an educational game for teaching counting, reading, and resource strength. If you can get past the disorganized instructions, then the card game, dice, and “race to the finish” aspect of the game will draw most kinds of gamers to the table.

Dust Collector: My daughter loves volcanoes and wants to play it again. Because the rules were set up in such a confusing manner, it was difficult to find the patience needed to play the game multiple times.